Billy Mays death linked to cocaine...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090807/.../us_billy_mays
Is there NO ONE out there who is NOT on friggin' drugs? What's so great about being high?
Like most of the teens and young adults growing up around me in the 70's and 80's, I allowed myself to try some of the different drugs of the day, sometimes to be part of the "group", but mostly to see what the hype was all about.
Pot and hash I found to be relatively harmless with an overrated "buzz" and the harsh, unfiltered smoke irritated my throat, even though I was a cigarette smoker at the time.
In the early days of 12 hour shift work, everyone used "bennies" ( I think that's what they were called) - large black pills that were supposed to help keep you awake and alert. That they did. I used to get off shift in the morning and be so wired that I would have to hit the apartment complex gym for furious, intense workouts before I would be able to fall asleep. One time, I was so tired yet wide awake even after the gym that in desperation to fall asleep, I hopped on my bicycle and tore up the streets until I was physically exhausted. Lying in bed afterwards, still awake and feeling my heart pounding like a bass drum, I decided that was it for me and bennies. I never did find out exactly what was in those things.
Acid (LSD) was widely used among the party crowd I hung out with, but even in the face of taunting persuasion from my buddies, I flat refused to even give it a try. There was this one older guy - a John Lennon lookalike, complete with the accent - who had a huge house and threw awesome parties on the last Saturday of every month. It was the in place to be and just about anything went. One of my friends knew the fellow pretty well so we were lucky enough to be on the coveted list to get past the thugs at the door. The caveat was that we had to bring chicks and that was not a problem - everyone wanted to go to these bashes and girls would offer us the world just to bring them along and get them inside.
One evening, before the party, we were hanging out at one guy's apartment, having a few beers and deciding who we wanted to include in our entourage. Out came the acid "blotters" and as usual, I declined; quite happy to stick to good old Heineken. Time came to head out and I went to the washroom, came back out and downed the rest of the beer I had left on the coffee table.
The party that night was wilder than ever. People jam-packed the house, and even though it was winter and the ground outside was covered in snow, the patio doors were left open and and the party spilled out onto the massive back deck. Getting to the kitchen and dining area which overlooked the living room for a drink meant wading through the crowd and squeezing up a short staircase. Once there you had to battle your way to the fridge or one of the big coolers for whatever you wanted.
I remember being pissed to find that the beer was finished as our group of eight had brought along three cases. Clear as day, I then recall finding myself standing in the middle of the kitchen with a circle of empty space around me. I was holding my bunch of keys in a "porcupine fist" and I had quite calmly decided that I was going to punch the next person who bumped into me. Someone must have sent for my friend Mark to get me out of there and he did manage to talk me down and lead me back out to the deck. The cold air hit me with a rush and there was a loud roaring sound ringing in my head. Trying to keep me calm, Mark explained that one of the guys, a big chubby jerk named Sid, had admitted to dropping a blotter of acid into my beer earlier at the apartment.
The owner of the place was sympathetic and just happy to see me coming around, but I was furious and quietly scanning around to see if I could spot Sid. I saw the bastard standing just inside the patio door looking to see what would happen. I took off after him and he hightailed it through the crowd, heading for the front door. I got my hands on him just as he opened the door and he fell forward onto the step. I landed a few punches as he tried to crawl away while people pulled at me from behind. I grabbed onto his belt and his pants came down to his knees. He was crying like a baby and I managed one last good, solid kick in the ass before they dragged me back inside. That incident and the sobering thoughts of what could have happened if I had actually hit someone with the keys only served to cement my resolve to stay the hell away from drugs. Except for one other time.
A couple of years went by and I was doing very well. I was pulling in well over 100k $CDN a year which was damn good money for a 22 year old single guy back in the early eighties. I had a big, very well decked out bachelor pad in a great apartment complex and a fairly steady stream of girls and drinking buddies came and went through my door. The refinery business was in full swing and there were many young people like me - making good money and enjoying the hell out of life. Coke became the drug of choice in the party crowd and though most of the people I partied with still smoked pot and hash, they splurged on the expensive white powder on a fairly regular basis. I witnessed some promising, bright people who had the world by the ass slowly slide downhill through broken relationships, work performance problems and financial crises. I had long since written drugs off as a waste of time and money, and I just couldn't see the big deal about being stoned.
One friday night about 1:00 am I was returning from driving a girl home - it was mid summer and the sky was still relatively bright. Walking across the parking lot, I heard someone shout my name. I looked way up and there were two old buddies of mine whom I hadn't seen in 3 or 4 years. Jeff, a big Ukrainian roughneck and Dave, a quieter scientist type had left with their respective families a couple of years after we all finished high school. They said they were back in town, working at the plant and had decided to throw a party and blow their first month's salary. Wide awake and still in a mood to party, I happily headed on up. By the time I got up to their floor, I had already psyched myself up with visions of good music, hot women and cold beer. After all, two guys blowing an entire month's paycheck had to mean one wild party, right?
Wrong!! Instead of my vision of the perfect party, what I found was two wasted guys in a barely furnished apartment, blaring acid rock and a rough, hooker-looking looking female passed out naked on the tattered couch. When I asked them what happened to the party, they said "This is it, man!" and when I asked where the people were they said they had something way better. Slapping a beer into my hand, they motioned me over to a small, round glass and rattan dining table and proudly told me to feast my eyes.
I saw more cocaine on that table than I had ever seen in one place in my life and immediately realized where all the party money had been spent! They were genuinely hurt and bewildered when they saw that I was less than impressed and they literally could not believe I had no intention of partaking of their generous narcotic banquet. They razzed me for writing off the cocaine experience without ever having tried it and kept at me to at least try a tiny snort. Considering that I was among friends and only two floors above my own apartment, I decided to relent and try a very small amount, just to see what was so great about this wonder drug. They set up a small line and handed me a rolled-up bill. Fighting a natural revulsion against inhaling foreign matter, I snorted the stuff up. They looked at me expectantly, waiting for a reaction. I myself waited for something to happen but I felt nothing different other than a cold sensation in my right nostril. They said I was "fighting it" and I assured them I was not as I was curious to see what the stuff was all about. They persuaded me to try another line - bigger this time - and the same thing happened - nothing other than a cold right nostril. It had absolutely zero effect on me and I laughingly told them I definitely could not ever see myself wasting a dime on the stuff, let alone a few grand. like they did.
That was 25 years ago this month and now back home in the Caribbean, I have never touched any kind of recreational drug since, Heck, I don't even like regular painkillers and I quit cigarettes cold turkey ten years ago with surprisingly no difficulty whatsoever. I did get a double dose of morphine, though, at the hospital a year or two back as I gave birth to a kidney stone, but that did nothing for me either and I went through the experience at full pain intensity. I passed three other stones after that and didn't bother with the hospital as I knew what was happening and I preferred to deal with the discomfort drug-free in the comfort of my home instead of on a hospital bed with two useless doses of morphine in my system. The story about the pain of labour making a mother bond to her child seems to have some merit though as I just can't bring myself to toss the little suckers in the garbage. I kept them all save one which was sent to Miami for analysis. That almost felt like sending a kid away to college and I occasionally catch myself expecting a letter or a phone call just to let me know how things are going. Minor dietary adjustments seem to have cured the kidney stone issue now, thank God.
That was a long tirade - I believe I'm developing a tendency to ramble when I write. I hope that's not some symptom of getting older - you know, like those elderly folks who go on and on forever about all kinds of stuff almost as if you pulled a cord or something when you said hello. I guess what I'm saying is I can understand a bit of experimentation with drugs when a person is young and foolish, but I cannot for the life of me understand a grown man or woman having such a passion for getting high that it becomes a lifelong, life-shortening obsession.
Thanks for hearing me out.
